First few paragraphs
Modern cosmology theory holds that our Universe may be just one in a vast
collection of universes known as the multiverse. MIT physicist Alan Guth has
suggested that new universes (known as “pocket universes”) are constantly
being created, but they cannot be seen from our Universe.

In this view, “nature gets a lot of tries -- the Universe is an experiment
that’s repeated over and over again, each time with slightly different
physical laws, or even vastly different physical laws,” says Jaffe.

Some of these universes would collapse instants after forming; in others,
the forces between particles would be so weak they could not give rise to
atoms or molecules. However, if conditions were suitable, matter would
coalesce into galaxies and planets, and if the right elements were present in
those worlds, intelligent life could evolve.

Some physicists have theorized that only universes in which the laws of
physics are “just so” could support life, and that if things were even a
little bit different from our world, intelligent life would be impossible. In
that case, our physical laws might be explained “anthropically,” meaning
that they are as they are because if they were otherwise, no one would be
around to notice them.

MIT physics professor Robert Jaffe and his collaborators felt that this
proposed anthropic explanation should be subjected to more careful scrutiny,
and decided to explore whether universes with different physical laws could
support life.

The MIT physicists have showed that universes quite different from ours
still have elements similar to carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, and could
therefore evolve life forms quite similar to us, even when the masses of
elementary particles called quarks are dramatically altered."

Chris Rohrs

(Just a pawn on the great chessboard of life)

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